Compositions to enrich, fortify or color food, beverages, animal feed, cosmetics or pharmaceutical compositions which contain fat-soluble active ingredients, for example beta-carotene, are known in the art. Beta-Carotene is a preferable colorant compound due to its intense and for the above-mentioned applications very pleasing orange color. Since the final compositions are usually aqueous compositions such as beverages, additional compounds have to be added to compositions for the enrichment, fortification and/or coloration to avoid separation of fat (oil) phases from the product, which would render the corresponding product unacceptable.
Therefore, fat-soluble active ingredients are often combined with auxiliary compounds such as starches or fish gelatin, in order to prevent phase separation in the final aqueous composition. Those auxiliary compounds, however, often have a negative influence on the color properties and the nutritional properties of the final products. It is therefore desired to develop new compositions of fat-soluble active ingredients, which contain improved auxiliary compounds, which have very good properties referring to taste, emulsification, emulsion stability, film forming ability and/or color of the composition.
Gum ghatti, otherwise known as the Indian gum or Axlewood, is obtained as exudate from Anogessias latifolia, tree belonging to the Combretaceae family. It is a complex polysaccharide with L-arabinose, D-galactose, D-mannose, D-xylose, and D-glucorinic acid. Gum ghatti may contain up to 5% or even more proteins. It is used for encapsulation of flavours or oils, as fibre source, film forming agent, adhesive etc.
US2003/0021874A1 discloses compositions used for stabilizing non-milk, acidic beverages. The pillar of all the compositions described in this application patent consists on a specific amount of a stabilizer system consisting either of pectin or alginate. Gums may be used additionally as stabilizers in case the compositions also contain clouding agents. In contrast to this patent application (US2003/0021874A1), the compositions according to the present invention do not contain stabilizers like pectin or alginate.
US2005/0287221A1 discloses a composition with gums and/or gum resins and active substances and their converting into dried forms. As disclosed therein, the disclosed active beadlets consists of encapsulated pharmaceuticals. These bioactive substances are for oral delivery to the small intestinal of mammal.
The compositions according to the present invention differ significantly from the compositions disclosed in US2005/0287221A1.
In coloring products, such as beverages, it is also often desirable to preserve the optical clarity of the beverage. Fat-soluble colorants, such as carotenoids, e.g. beta-carotene, for supplementation are available in many forms, but when added to beverages, will tend to increase the visible turbidity. Ringing, i.e. the formation of a separate fat-soluble beta-carotene layer on the top of the liquid is also a problem of many known beta-carotene formulations. One means of adding fat-soluble substances to beverages without increasing visible turbidity or ringing is to encapsulate the substances in liposomes. However, this is a costly process, and the concentration of substance in the liposome tends to be low.
A satisfactory composition of a fat-soluble colorant, such as carotenoids, which can be added to beverages in a restorative or nutritionally supplemental amount, should thus not affect the optical clarity of the beverage and not alter the sensory properties of the beverage to which it is added and furthermore it should not cause ringing.